PANO – Sr. Lt. Gen. Do Ba Ty, Chief of the General Staff of the Vietnam People’s Army (VPA) led a Vietnam delegation to attend the 12th ASEAN Chiefs of Defence Forces Informal Meeting (ACDFIM-12) opened on February 10th in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia.
>>> ACDFIM-12: Chief of the General Staff starts meetings in Malaysia
The ACDFIM-12, themed “ASEAN-Maintaining Regional Security and Stability for People”, heard reports on the outcome of 12th ASEAN Military Intelligence Informal Meeting (AMIIM-12) and the fifth ASEAN Military Operations Informal Meeting(AMOIM-5), which took place in the city on February 7th to 9th.
Delegates at the ACDFIM-12
Security environment in Southeast Asia has been relatively stable. However, there appeared constant sophisticated threats, posing a number of challenges that require great efforts and vigilance to protect peace and stability in the region.
The meeting re-affirmed that the approval of the Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC) plays a vital role in maintaining maritime security and stable security environment in the region.
The participants also agreed that non-traditional threats as natural disasters, terrorism, maritime security and trans-nation crimes remain an important regional agenda and that ASEAN armed forces should cooperate with each other via information sharing, capacity building, training, and joint exercises to actively contribute to the maintenance of security and stability in the region.
At the meeting, ASEAN Chiefs of Defence Forces reaffirmed the role of ASEAN armed forces in dealing with regional security challenges through cooperation and coordination regulations. Besides, they agreed on continuously implementing the two-year Action Plan of ASEAN armed forces in 2015-2017 period, considering it the orientation for ASEAN armies’ multilateral activities. They also agreed to enhance the ASEAN armies’ cooperation via specific cooperation activities following ACDFIM-12’s theme.
Addressing the meeting, General Tan Sri Zulkifeli Bin Mohd Zin, Malaysian Chief of Defence Forces stressed that the demand for official structure of ACDFIM is urgent with two tasks of restructuring the reporting channels and the removal of the terminology “Informal” from the name of the meeting. Despite challenges during the process of formalizing the ACDFIM’s structure, the Malaysian General affirmed that this process would be a success and operational soon. Recommendations raised at the meeting would be submitted to the coming ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting (ADMM) via the ASEAN Defence Senior Officials’ Meeting (ADSOM) scheduled after the ACDFIM-12.
Delegation heads showing solidarity at the ACDFIM-12
For his part, VPA’s Chief of the General Staff Sr. Lt. Gen. Do Ba Ty emphasized that security and stability have been proven through reality to be a prerequisite for the development of each country and for peace, prosperity and happiness of people.
“The army of each country has always played a proactive role in maintaining security and stability while staying ready for any unexpected missions and situations”, the Vietnamese general said.
To make the cooperation more effective, especially in joint activities relating to non-traditional security, and to promote the vital role of the army in the time to come, Gen. Ty raised the following solutions.
Firstly, information sharing should be strengthened, advancing to establishing the general database on forces with key roles in coping with non-traditional security issues, including humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, maritime security and anti-terrorism. In this aspect, Vietnam hailed the strengthening of the coordination, including the cooperation between the Information Fusion Centre (IFC) and the Changi Regional Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) Coordination Centre.
Secondly, effective coordination among current regional cooperation mechanisms should be enhanced to ensure that those mechanisms could support each other to bring into play their resources. Therefore, besides proactive participation in joint and annual cooperation areas in the framework of ADMM and ADMM+, some new defence cooperation fields should be initiated and carried out every year to make ASEAN armed forces’ defence ties more effective and practical as from 2016.
Thirdly, it needs to step up joint activities, especially joint exercises to promote coordination capacity, and complete the standard cooperation process among ASEAN armed forces. Moreover, the outcome of the 15th ASEAN Chiefs of Army Multilateral Meeting (ACAMM-15) should be promptly implemented with a focus on seeking mechanisms to link resources and raise coordination capability of ASEAN armed forces in dealing with non-traditional challenges.
Gen. Ty’s speech won big applause from delegates.
In the afternoon the same day, the meeting approved and signed the joint statement and witnessed the handover of the chairmanship of AMIIM, AMOIM and ACDFIM- 13 scheduled to take place in 2016 to Laos.
Sr. Lt. Gen. Do Ba Ty (L) and Commander of the Royal Brunei Armed Forces
* On the sideline of the meeting, Gen. Ty had bilateral meetings with head delegates of Brunei, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.
In his meeting with Major General Dato Seri Pahlawan Mohd Tawih bin Abdullah, Commander of the Royal Brunei Armed Forces, Gen. Ty thanked the Royal Brunei Armed Forces for its active participation and contributions to the success of events that Vietnam hosted last year, including ACAMM-15, the 24th ASEAN Armies Rifle Meet (AARM-24) and the 4th ASEAN Sergeant Major Annual Meeting (ASMAM-4).
The Vietnamese general also highly appreciated Brunei’s assistance to the VPA in training officers and asked Brunei to give more scholarships to Vietnamese officers in the coming time.
For his part, Major General Dato Seri Pahlawan Mohd Tawih bin Abdullah thanked Vietnam for its warmly welcome for the Royal Brunei Navy’s ship last April and for sending the latest frigates of the Vietnam People’s Navy to visit Brunei last November. The Brunei general also highly spoke of the Vietnam-Brunei people-to-people exchanges and suggested a more effective use of the direct line between the two navies.
Meanwhile, in his meeting with Thai Chief of Defence Forces General Worapong Sanganetra, Gen. Ty emphasized that the bilateral defence ties have been positively developing but the naval cooperation needs to be promoted in the time to come. He also mentioned the enhancement of cooperation in search and rescue, joint patrol, information sharing, and officer training.
The Thai general promised to do his utmost to make the two armies’ friendly ties more fruitful. In short term, the Thai army could expand its training program for Vietnam, and increase the number of scholarships for Vietnamese officers.
Meeting with Major General Kham Lieng, Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Laos People’s Army, Gen. Ty confirmed that the continuous development of the Vietnam-Laos special friendship has been vividly demonstrated through the close ties between the two armies in jointly carrying out activities as building a peaceful and friendly border line. Gen. Ty recommended that the two countries’ border protection forces should boost their coordination, information exchange, border patrol, prevention of law violation actions at border areas so as to maintain the peaceful and friendly Vietnam-Laos border line.
In reply, Major General Kham Lieng expressed his pleasure at the two armies’ good cooperation results in recent years and confirmed that he would try his best to deepen Laos-Vietnam special cooperation in practical and effective manner.
While meeting with General Pol Saroeun, Commander of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces, Gen. Ty laid stress on Vietnam-Cambodia’s friendship and solidarity, including the friendly ties between the two armies, as a vital role in upholding peace and stability in the region. He spoke highly of the two armies’ cooperation to ensure and strengthen a peaceful and friendly border line between the two countries.
For his part, Gen. Pol Saroeun emphasized that Cambodia attaches much importance to its friendship with Vietnam for mutual benefit and for regional peace and stability.
The ACDFIM-12 wrapped up with successes in the afternoon of February 10th.
The ACDFIM-12’s joint statement agreed on the submission of the formalization of ACDFIM to ADMM and the new name of ASEAN Chiefs of Defence Forces Meeting (ACDFM) after ADMM’s approval. It also approved the mechanism on ACDFM under ADMM’s agreement; and reached a consensus on proposing ADMM to establish ACDFM Plus; applauded Indonesia’s initiative on the symbolic flag of ACDFM for specific design later; and on the establishment of a permanent secretariat of ACDFM and the appointment of the year’s chairmanship to secretaryship. |
Van Yen from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Translated by Mai Huong
Đăng ký: VietNam News
